December 13 2022

Work to reimagine a tired office block in Edinburgh's Exchange District as the city's 'greenest' has begun on site.

Michael Laird Architects (MLA), acting on behalf of CBRE Investment Management, have elected to work with the existing Excel House (designed by MLA in 2001) rather than start anew, adding a new extension, roof terrace and a modernised facade.

Increasing floorspace to 57,000sq/ft the redevelopment is targetting a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating by stripping the current structure down to its frame before adding two additional floors.

Quantifying the carbon savings of this approach the team wrote: "By stripping back to the original frame, 30 Semple Street has saved 3,300 tons of CO2, more than 50% of the carbon that would have been used in reconstruction."

Ogilvy Construction is now on-site with completion expected by June 2024, taking its place next to 2 Semple Street, also by MLA. 

2 Comments

#1 Posted by Phil on 14 Dec 2022 at 17:20 PM

It clearly missing some solar shade on it's upper floors...

#2 Posted by Lovely on 19 Dec 2022 at 13:47 PM

Laughable if it wasn't so serious. If the 'greenest' building is one that needs to be completely re-built every 20 years then there really is no hope. The 'greenest' thing you can 'really' do is to never touch utterly vacuous greenwash architecture like this.

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